NY Times gives Denny a big wet one...

Pieces of puff journalism like this should be reserved to places like Parade and People magazines, and kept out of the pages of the NY Times.

I'm not saying that Hastert doesn't have power or that he is a total puppet of DeLay's, but damn... some of the selective interpretations and over-looked items boggle the mind.

He was asked who was the true power in the House, he or Mr. DeLay. The speaker is not given to using the pronoun "I"; ever the coach, his sentences are sprinkled with "we," which is how he began.

"We sit back," he said, "and we do the things that we have to do to make this place work. And you know, Tom can talk about issues that are important to him, but basically we make those decisions that are important, I think."

And who is we?

"My office, yes, I do," Mr. Hastert replied, without hesitation. He let out a little chuckle. "It's an imperial we."

Dude... if you have to even go through the charade of asking who is in charge... and he's more:

And Mr. Hastert has broad appeal. He can headline fund-raisers in all 50 states, an ability that will be useful during the 2006 midterm elections, when the party in power typically loses House seats, a fate Mr. Bush wants to avoid.

But then there is this:

He may be next in line to the presidency after the vice president, but Republican pollsters say Mr. Hastert's national name recognition barely hits 30 percent.

Huh? So does he have broad appeal because nobody knows him? And who doesn't play well to the crowds of their own party? Sure, there might be a few who don't, but jeez...

All that aside, the worst aspect of the piece is that they try to portray him as this really nice guy who is fatherly tough when he needs to be... a "consensus builder" who "to work across the aisle as much as [he] can," but like a shepherd, he needs to worry about his flock, er, caucus, first. If that means getting a little creative with the House rules, well, that's just one strategy he pursues.

Nevermind that in the few short years that the Republicans have taken the House, they have gone on a drunken power binge out-doing the worse excesses of the Democrats during the decades they held the reins. Excluding Democrats from being able to offer amendments, allowing only a few hours for reviewing major legislation prior to votes, extending voting periods past 15 minutes so that they can bribe/extort recalcitrant legislators for their votes, not recognizing objections against ending debate on motions, kicking out the Ethics Chair and replacing him with a DeLay stooge when he has the gall to slap the Bugman on the wrist...

The list goes on and on, but it's nothing a good whitewashing can't help, and Stolberg stepped up to the plate. Disgraceful.